By Chris Oddo | Tuesday March 27, 2018
Victoria Azarenka stretched her Miami Open winning streak to 11 with a win over Karolina Pliskova on Tuesday in Miami.
Photo Source: Matthew Stockman/Getty
Just like last season, when she reached the second week at Wimbledon in her second event after giving birth to her son Leo, Victoria Azarenka is shaking the rust off in her second event of 2018. The Belarussian notched a comfortable 7-5, 6-3 win over No.5-seeded Karolina Pliskova on Tuesday night to book a semifinal slot alongside Sloane Stephens at the Miami Open.
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Azarenka is playing in just her second event since Wimbledon due to a custody battle that has forced her to remain mostly in California over the last year. But in March she has returned to the tennis court on a mission and she accomplished that mission with relative ease against one of the true forces of the game on Tuesday.
Azarenka, currently ranked 186, showed flashes of the brilliant movement, defense, counterpunching and attack that took her to the top of the game and made her a two-time major winner, and it will be interesting to see if she can continue to ride her momentum into the weekend at this prestigious event.
If Tuesday was any indication, she’s ready to go toe-to-toe with any of the top players in the game.
“I felt that I was returning really well today, reading her serve better than the match before,” Azarenka told reporters after the match. “I had a little bit more trouble the last time we played by reading her serve.”
Azarenka broke the tour’s ace leader seven times on 11 opportunities and though she too had struggles holding serve, she eventually took charge of a loosely played second set, breaking in the fifth game and consolidating to create a gap that she would never relinquish.
She also nearly blew a big lead in the opener after racing out to a sizable lead, but that's all part of the process for the former World No.1.
“First tournament when I'm coming back after a long period of time is always going to be a little bit rusty, and it's hard to find the rhythm,” Azarenka said. “But I feel that with every match I'm improving better. As long as I'm healthy, I'm able to improve quite fast, so I hope to continue on this path.”
Azarenka improved to 3-1 lifetime over Pliskova and 64-61 lifetime against Top 10 players. She will look to avenge a straight-sets defeat that came at the hands of Stephens last week at Indian Wells when the pair meet for the fifth time in the semifinals.
Stephens came through on Tuesday with an impressive win over Angelique Kerber to ensure herself Top 10 debut in next week's WTA rankings.
Azarenka owns a lifetime 3-1 edge over the American and while many other players might be happy just to have reached the semifinals so early in her return to tennis, Azarenka has that winner’s mentality and wants to keep on racking up the victories.
“The possibility of winning is always in my head,” she said. “That's why I play. I don't come to a tournament just to play.”